The HummerNovember 2006

Synchestra was meant to counter Alien, but to be honest, it wasn’t enough. I had thrown myself into a pretty deep hole and realized I needed to really analyze my way out of it. The bottom line was: I was afraid and paranoid, and my anxiety of people and circumstance was at an all-time high and needed to be dealt with. I felt in order to combat that, I need to make ‘the most beautiful record I could make’ and the hummer became my view on that at the time. It was never released commercially- just through my website, and as such, I didn’t have to include a UPC code or anything (purposely) to keep it ‘un-commercial’ yet (let’s be honest) – it’s an ambient record of low frequency humming noises, so ‘commercial’ was never really a consideration. I liked the idea of making a huge environment of low notes that once volume was added, would shake and vibrate the rooms it was played in in different ways. Different notes produced different effects. The beginning and end of the record is quite nice in my opinion, (sort of a cloudy, new-agey statement I suppose). I remember playing it loud to a bunch of friends of mine and someone commenting that it was almost like a sort of ‘weapon’ (and that bummed me out…) but actually, I listened to the record a year or so ago and realized that it is still actually a fairly dark statement. I may change my view on that eventually, but currently- through all of its kind of ‘heavenly’ soundscapes- there’s a sense that it’s in the midst of combat still. Konrad Palkeiwicz did the art for the album and did a great, great job in my opinion. I included the lyrics to Ravi Shankars ‘Prabhujee’ inside the album as sort of a prayer to the infinite to allow me to get out of the hole I was in. I think The Hummer plays an important role for me, and it took the better part of a year to complete.